Beneath the Ice
by writteninhaste
Summary: AU. You never truly the know the difference between friends and enemies until you fall through the ice.


**Beneath the Ice**

Edgerton can see what will happen before it does, opens his mouth to cry a warning, to yell move, fucking _move_ - get off the ice. But he's too late. The guy turns, face young and open, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape in surprise. The ice cracks and he drops, his cry cut short as his face plunges beneath the ice. Edgerton's already running, throwing his body down, spreading his weight over the largest area possible; trying to take what he knows of eddies and water beneath ice to judge where the guy might end up if he's thrashing around. A dark shape blurs beneath the white and Edgerton can do nothing but pray to god he's not just imagining things. The butt of his gun cracks hard and sharp, again and again, the cracks spreading, compromising his position, and Edgerton knows this is stupid – knows they're probably both dead now – but then his arm's in the water, and his hand closes around a sodden, corduroy sleeve and he's pulling, pulling with all his strength, dragging and yanking and rolling away, clutching another body to him as the ice creaks and grates and moans beneath them. The guy is coughing, spluttering water and fear from his lungs, body shaking uncontrollably, but Edgerton's not letting go. Dark curls fall in a wilting halo across his chest, and a voice is saying "thank you, thank you, thank you" against his neck.

The guy's name is Charlie. Charles. He's young, and Edgerton bounces his age down to eighteen and back up to thirty before settling on somewhere just past twenty-five. They're in dry clothes – Ian's – and Charlie has his hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee, riddled with cream and plenty of sugar and he's ignoring it in favour of explaining to Ian what he was doing out on the ice in the first place. Maths. Mathematics. Charlie's a professor. He looks barely old enough to be a graduate. He's talking wild and fast, eyes alight and a smile on his face. Ian doesn't understand a word of it, but he listens anyway.

Charlie catches sight of Ian's face – lips twisted in a smile that hangs suspended between the realms of the fond and the mocking – blushes, and stops rather abruptly. He pulls his lower lip between his teeth, flicks his tongue out to taste, runs the pads of his thumbs against the rim of his mug and asks Ian about himself instead.

Ian mentions Quantico and the FBI, leaves out the part about being a sniper. Charlie's eyes widen ever so slightly, as though the letters F-B-I mean more to him than he's admitting. Ian cocks an eyebrow but Charlie simply blushes again and offers a compliment. Ian laughs, sincere and startled. It's been a long time since anyone offered him a compliment that wasn't a prelude to a demand for something else – a death shot or sex. Charlie smiles at him, quiet, and a little shy, and Ian catches the way his eyes dart up and down Ian's body before skittling away. Maybe this compliment is a prelude to something else as well. Ian isn't sure he minds.

Charlie bites his lip, gnaws on the supple flesh for the space of a heartbeat before determinedly setting his coffee aside. He stands, crosses the short distance from the bed in Ian's motel room to the wall where Ian's leaning. Charlie's shorter than he is; pale skin and long dark lashes, a mop of curling hair. Slender, aristocratic fingers curl themselves into his shirt and it takes very little effort for Ian to tilt Charlie's head up, to seal their mouths together and to let heat sink into them both. Charlie shudders, pressing forward on a moan, rising on tiptoe when Ian doesn't bend down quick enough for his liking.

The walk to the bed is quick and disjointed – Charlie stumbling, Ian sure; large hands splayed on Charlie's hips and Charlie finger's still curled against the hollow of his shoulders, curled in the material of his shirt. The mattress bounces beneath their weight, and Charlie is bucked back up into Ian's body, hips pressing flush even as torsos rear apart.

Charlie moans and Ian laughs, and then its mouths pressed together, hands dragging clothes over skin and off, fabric slithering to the floor and the panting of breath in the quiet air. Ian's hands feel huge on Charlie's skin, hot and wide and callus-marred. In contrast, Charlie's touch is light, fleeting, elven-soft and tantalising. His fingers skim over Ian's waist, up his back, between his shoulder blades; Ian's hands curve over Charlie's shoulders as they move in a hot, slick slide – Charlie's heels planted against the backs of Ian's thighs for leverage.

Their joining is one of heat and skin and slow, roiling pressure. Charlie is murmuring Ian's name like a vindication or a prayer and Ian's mouth is pressed against Charlie's collar-bone, words lost to the trickle of sweat against his lips.

The tide rises in a hedonic wave. Swells, abates and rises again. Charlie chokes on a desperate cry. Ian's teeth press against his own lips and Charlie's skin as pleasure crashes over, and under, and within them.

Ian rolls to the side, flings one arm across Charlie's hips and tries to regulate his breathing. Beside him, Charlie is a panting, quivering, sated mass. Dark eyes turn to him in a blissed out haze, a gentle smile tugging at the corner of his lips and when Ian curls his hands around Charlie's waist, draws him closer, Charlie doesn't protest.

They lie, tangled and sleepy, sweat gelling on their flesh, as the sun sinks deep behind the horizon. Charlie worms his way further into Ian's embrace, seeking heat as the night chills around them. Ian buries his face in Charlie's curls and lets sleep claim him; safe as they both are from the prison of the ice.


End file.
